I have been playing WM for a couple of years now, and to my knowledge there is no such animal.

I have a tested database of at least 20 designs for different conditions, but even then you can stuff up big time.
Pick a 1 in 6, 18%, and hit a low resource universe.... You're toast.
Go with 1 in 3 19% -f, and meet a -f CA ... Burnt toast.
Pick a reasonable average, and end up between two SDs ... Breadcrumbs.

Each game has it's own requirements, duels need totally different designs to huge multi's, diplomacy changes needs, if you are known to enough of the other players as a trusted friend, you would design to take advantage of this, however most WMs are not very diplomatic or they would not have chosen the race in the first place.

however most WMs are not very diplomatic or they would not have chosen the race in the first place.

I would like to differ on this point for a number of reasons. EDog would know of this race that I am about to point out but in the game Battle for Glory Two I played a, get this, _PEACEFULL_ War Monger. Interstingly enough this worked out well for me as I soon met up with what was known as the Pigs in Space, who where also WM. Since the Pigs in Space decided to take out everybody and anybody around them due to the fact that they knew they couldn't get their planets any other way, I was able to build a "coalition" of races to fight against him. Soon I had both a CA and a IS on my side providing me with both Standard AND speed Bump mine layers, as well as Propulsion Tech and Electronics tech while I researched for the Heavy Blaster Dreadnaughts.

Now the race I played took advantage of the Cheap weapons and I was able to build a fleet of a good 30 Dreadnaughts, all of which where struggling to get into one fleet. The next sized fleet was that of a Cruiser design from the IS who's tech wasn't that great (had all expensive tech) Though he did have them in large enough numbers to make them extremely dangerous (fleets of like 30-50 ships). Then of course was a second fleet of about 10 BB's that was also slowly growing. The reason I was playing peacefully was because I knew my Race reached it's peak not in the middle of the game but towards the endgame. It may seem strange for a War Monger to let go of it's early weapons advantages and what not, but think about a Dreadnaught fleet being built by sets of 5-8 per year until minerals kick in. The Dreadnaught coupled with Cheap engines, Cheap Weapons, Maxed out Regenerating Shields, and the best Weapons tech in the galaxy... it is OK to be peacefull as a Warmonger.

Then again think of the game you wish to join and rather than think of how a WM should fit into that game think of what you think could take full advantage of the oportunit
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Agree with you Stalwart... The fact of being perceived as a "dangerous" or, say, an "agressive" race, may imply a lot of diplomacy from your neighbours. They know you will probably want to take ONE of them early, so they will try all the necessary to avoid to be the target. And diplomacy is the best way to get there at a lesser cost (you can also show that you have a powerful military but that would cost you dearly in the beginning game).

Still, if you choose to be all the way agressive with your favorite WM race, you better get enough advantage of that strategy so as to allow you victory at one point or the other. All this because this behavior will probably exclude posterior alliance and WM is not particularly great in the middle-end game without an ally. His weak defensive capabilities need to be compensated by a good ally or you are in trouble. I think in particular in the absence of mine fields. In a medium/large or huge game, you will need to trade mine layers. Your best DN's won't stop several armies attacking from different angles and destroying about one planet a year, when you need 3 to 4 times more between minesweeping, attack, bombing the installations and bombing the population... And in the late game, WM has less economic advantages than the "economic races" so alone it would be inferior.

In all games where I was WM, I did not necessarily attacked early, and when authorized, diplomacy was always present. Being ABLE to attack early was a huge tool for obtaining what I wanted. Lots of fun I also played WM in small universes with no diplomacy and attacking or counter attacking was indeed the only alternative. Lots of fun too

Now, about the ideal design, it doesn't exists. As Chagarra pointed out, it depends a lot of the initial conditions, number of players, size universe etc. and even then, nothing ensure you are going to win or even just "doing well". If you need some help on a particular design, first post the environmental conditions and propose a
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My meaning was that a WM should always be played aggressively, this does not preclude the diplomatic options.
However I must be convinced that the recipient of my diplomacy, ie, full partnership, is worthy, since I apply myself in those cases as a team player, totally.

I agree about not playing aggressive. When other races around you find out your WM thats when there can be trouble because you become a threat, however, if it is possible to keep your PRT hidden or masked until you are stronger then diplomacy is the only options left for your neighbours. I always try to keep neutral with my neighbours, and built my resources. But an alliance is nice every once and awhile:)
Mosser

I agree about not playing aggressive. When other races around you find out your WM thats when there can be trouble because you become a threat, however, if it is possible to keep your PRT hidden or masked until you are stronger then diplomacy is the only options left for your neighbours. I always try to keep neutral with my neighbours, and built my resources. But an alliance is nice every once and awhile:)
Mosser

It's extremely difficult to hide for a long time that you are WM. You just have one battle with any ship and your speed bonus is discovered. Unless you send no scout out there, which is quite generally a bad idea...

Granted. It is difficult but not impossible to mask your race for a while. When you are found out just don't be too aggressive to other players, and unless they hold a personal grudge to you or the WM race, your safe for a few years. Unless your close to suicidal neighbours
But there are always enough aggressive players that are not WM to keep you from immediate war with your the people close to you.
Mosser

WarMongers make great allies IMHO. Supply 'em with Iron and let them do most of the offensive warfare... especially if you have any-mass gates or overcloakers or detonating minefields to use in support. Just make sure you have a reason to trust them.

AS far as a "best" WM design - I like 'em fast and furious. QS economy or quick HG. Keep in mind that you'll probably want Regen Shields and cheap Construction.

I like very much Coyotes's suggestion of RS and cheap Construction. Make the most out of that BC hull.

About agressivity, I've found that it is not so difficult to justify to the players X and Y why you are attacking and destroying player Z. You have many good reasons to do so, like a need for expansion required by a poor availability of greens in your space, the fact that your race is not an economic powerhouse so you cannot stay quiet in your corner and wait for something to happen, and that this player Z never minded to answer your calls and that players X and Y seems much more interesting neighbours to set up a future collaboration. In summary, have them be happy that they weren't your first target and that you want to collaborate with them.

In the end it's a matter of density and total number of players. If you have more than 3/4 opponents, you should try to ally with someone because you'll need him, even if it's only for a period of time. "I'll kill you last" agreement works well here.

I also like Coyote's fast and furious design but I have never had much luck with Cheap Engines. Especially when I have to launch long range attacks. I have added one wrinkle to my last few plays-Total Terra form. Expensive yes but the added benefits of being able to populate worlds you had to leave behind is great. It is a great way to increase your resource base within your borders tenfold without having to expand. This is not for all games but in a long term game you can not beat it. At least not yet...

In a team game a WM can be quite fierce. My bro played one to good effect last year during Lensmen2. He had 27k and Juggs by 2450 (1st) due to his ability to quickly expand. He had also built an attack fleet which stomped the AR next door.

Pretty straight forward design with very modest economy settings. Two wide and one narrow in HAB to ensure that the planets he did find would be generally pretty good.

He was the muscle for this team game. The ITs built the gate infrastructure, gated minerals to him and overgated the terriformers supplied by our CA. True he fell to 4th place though his fleet was huge with 480 capital ships and 480 escort ships (mostly BCs) by the end of the game at 2485.

So yes everybody seems to strain to build a competitive WM, they are even harder than an SS to build well. Maybe these races are better suited for cooperative play. I do know one thing for sure, he had the most fun that game!

I have the best time in games when I play WM. I like the aggressive play needed. Most of the time everyone is all touchy feely until year 2475 the they start flexing their muscle. Now I admit I have never taken higher than 4 or 5 place with a WM but boy what a ride.

Well, I look at this and wonder what the universe density was since the race is a 1 in 4 hab race. With the econ settings, I wouldn't expect this race to get to much more than 12k in a small, normal universe at 2450. Granted, since it was a team game with a CA - all the tf was free - that accounts for probably around 8k of the resources the race had.

Using a 1 in 3 design with 14,10,12 and 1/1200 colonist settings I get the WM up to 16k at 2450 in a small, normal universe with 16 planets, 2 about to be colonized and a resource growth rate of over 1k per year. Additionally, all the terraforming has been done on the 5 highest value planets and there are 10 armed space docks. Tech is at 9,10,10,10,8,8. The race has plenty of minerals available and plenty of minerals are getting to where they are needed on time since the race uses mine efficiency of 12kt per 10 mines. This race also only uses a growth rate of 17% yet still does well. Current potential if it stops taking new planets is ~50k at full population with a few low reds that can still be colonized and worked on. Note, that I do these benchmarks using a small, normal, accelerated BBS universe with 3 standard AI's to cause some construction to go into warships.

I'd doubt that a WM with these specs would have much trouble hitting more than 25k in a dense or packed universe. A sparse or normal universe would be a more difficult arena for it to play it in.

The 17% with the LSP in the accBBS start didn't do too bad - again, the problem is avaialable planets. An 18% race didn't fare any better. For 25k you need AT LEAST 12 planets producing a little over 2k each. You aren't going to find that many high greens in a small/normal with enough time to set them up in the first 50 years. Many of the planets found are going to be low to mid greens that have to be terraformed to get to their potential. In a small/dense - yes, 1 in 4 works.

Go ahead and try his design in a small / normal and see how well you do - you won't hit 20k. I'm not sure there is a design with one cheap tech that can hit 25k in 50 years in a small/normal

About the only tweak that can improve on this are to go with 13,9,13 and 1100 pop efficiency which actually provides 94 more resources at HW when full (2859 vs. 2765). You can still have 1 in 3 planets with this and you can tweak the mines to 11 4 11. Believe me - even that one extra kt of mine efficiency helps quite a bit.

There are a few other options that can allow the 18% growth such as taking NRSE and CE while dropping the RS and the LSP. But, as a warmonger, you want those ram scoops and you also want your ships to get there ALL the time.

Small/normal has 128 planets. It means 32 greens with 1 in 4 hab. If its small/normal 8 players game that you are talking about then WM will not probably just sit in the corner holding his 16 planet empire.

All i tried to say was:
A) I will probably get significally over 25k by 2450 with his design in small/normal played alone.
B) I will probably get more resources with his design than with yours by 2450 in small/normal game played alone.
C) I will probably win a duel against your design in small/normal 2 player game using his design.
D) The smaller the game gets the better i probably fare against your race, because yours is LOT slower race.

To be honest - I don't see either design getting over 25k even if it is played alone. I'm going to examine a few other options but, there really isn't much in the way of choices. Even a 1 in 6 grav immune WM does as well as his design does in the tests I've run. The only way that his design hit 27k in 2450 was by virtue of the free CA terraforming.

Besides, nobody but Mark had bothered to throw any design into this thread so I figured I may as well get it going

Ptolemy

[Updated on: Mon, 29 March 2004 12:15]

Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.

* 10 mines operated are too few to deplete minerals on most of the planets. Going over 10 mine efficiency below 15 mines operated is not profitable at all in reasonable time-frame.

One of my recent testbeds confirms that: a +f race with 11/x/10 mines had at turn 15 more minerals and free resources as race with 10/x/15 (note: the same RW cost), but after turn 20 the second race took the lead with produced minerals and stayed there until turn 110, with maximum advantage of 16% more mined minerals around turn 55.
I hadn't tried to find exact breakpoint, but from other testbeds I'd estimate it is close to 11/x/17 vs. 10/x/22.
BR, Iztok

To be honest - I don't see either design getting over 25k even if it is played alone. I'm going to examine a few other options but, there really isn't much in the way of choices. Even a 1 in 6 grav immune WM does as well as his design does in the tests I've run. The only way that his design hit 27k in 2450 was by virtue of the free CA terraforming.

Doh? Only way? It isnt 1. April already? I remember constantly getting over 30K at minimum effort with such classical, Jason Cawley style HG like his played alone. I would not play it in game, because i like to have at least 16 mines operated for HG, LSP+ start at 3 seems like waste of points and if it is planned to use in quick small game i would take NAS and bit cheaper tech.

Your race has flaws in early speed but i could probably reach near 25k with that too.

I ran quick testbed .. small/normal his race alone. Quite usual quickie testbed colonization MM until turn 30. Then just switching the research and genning turns gave me: